Work and freelance visas in Hong Kong
We will match each hire to the admission stream that actually accepts them, build the employer's half of the file, and say in advance which permissions allow more than one payer.
First stay granted
Первый срок
36 months
36 месяцев
Application fee
Сбор за заявление
HK$600 each
600 HKD с человека
Decision, full file
Решение по делу
4 weeks
4 недели
Free of an employer
Свобода от найма
HK$2m income
доход 2 млн HKD
When you need a Hong Kong work visa
Your candidate is in the wrong stream
Four admission streams sit side by side, and each reads different evidence. A file sent down the wrong one fails on a question the candidate was never asked to answer.
The vacancy has to be genuine
The department asks whether the job exists and whether local staff could take it up. That question is answered by the employer's documents, long before the candidate's.
You are hiring without a degree
The technical stream accepts experience instead, but only for listed trades, only between 18 and 40, and only within a quota.
You want to bill several clients
There is no freelance permit here. Being paid by more than one payer means holding a permission that carries no employment condition at all.
The hire is a recent graduate
Someone who studied here is admitted on a separate arrangement, needs no offer at the start, and arrives free of any named employer.
What you get
- The stream that fits the hire
- The employer's half of the file
- Fees and timing named upfront
- Dependants filed together
- A plan for the next renewal
What a Hong Kong work visa requires
Hiring into Hong Kong is a choice between admission streams before it is anything else. They share a sponsor, a fee table and a four-week clock, and they part company on the evidence each one reads. Where the person is being admitted for the office they hold in the company, the question belongs to director and executive visas instead.
No local entity to sponsor the hire? That is company registration in Hong Kong, and it comes first. Everything else we run in this market is on the Hong Kong page.
Which stream takes your hire
General Employment Policy
The default for professionals from outside the Mainland. Quota-free and tied to no sector, on a first degree in the relevant field or proven equivalent experience.
Technical Professionals Stream
For experienced non-degree professionals aged 18 to 40. Subject to quota, limited to trades on the published list, each with its own qualification and contract minimum.
Mainland talents and professionals
The same criteria as the general policy, for Chinese residents of the Mainland who are not graduates of a Hong Kong programme.
Non-local graduates
For people who took a degree here. A graduate applying within six months of graduation needs no job offer at all.
What the employer has to show
Four of the five published criteria belong to the employer, not to the candidate: that the vacancy is genuine, that the offer is confirmed, that the job cannot readily be taken up by the local workforce, and that the remuneration package — income, accommodation, medical and other benefits — is broadly in line with the prevailing market level for professionals here. In the technical stream the pay test is sharper still: at least the market level for that trade, and never below the prevailing median earnings of people qualified at post-secondary non-degree level.
| What is charged or counted | The published figure |
|---|---|
| Application fee, each person | HK$600 |
| Visa issued for over 180 days | HK$1,300 |
| Visa issued for 180 days or less | HK$600 |
| Processing, complete file | 4 weeks |
| First stay, professionals | 36 months |
| First stay, recent local graduates | 24 months |
| Extension pattern | 3 then 2 years |
| Permanent residence | after 7 years |
What the employment condition does
An employment condition binds a professional to the one job the Director of Immigration signed off, and moving to another one has to be cleared first. The opening grant runs three years — or stops earlier if the contract does — and the two grants after it are three years and then two. Graduates arrive differently: a recent local graduate gets 24 months on time limitation only, with no employer named, and has to show an offer at a level commonly taken up by degree holders when the first extension comes.
The freelance answer is an absence
Hong Kong issues no freelance permit. The way out of one payer is to stop being on an employment condition, and two doors lead there. A professional who has worked here under the general policy for at least two years and had an assessable income for salaries tax of no less than HK$2 million in the previous year of assessment is normally granted five years on time limitation only, without other conditions of stay. The talent schemes open the same door on entry, and they are on talent visas in Hong Kong. Otherwise self-employment means entering as an entrepreneur on a three-year business plan, with a sponsor and forecast accounts.
Sources: General Employment Policy, Technical Professionals Stream, arrangements for non-local graduates and the fee tables (Immigration Department).
Stages of work
The stream chosen for each hire.
We take the role, the person's qualifications and their passport, and name the stream that will accept the file. For a non-degree hire we check the published trade list and the quota before anything else.
The employer's half assembled.
Proof of a genuine vacancy, the confirmed offer, why local recruitment did not fill it, and a remuneration package that stands against the market level. This is where refusals are decided.
Qualifications verified the way it asks.
Degrees are checked by a third-party credential verification body or the awarding institution, and the department runs its own online authentication. A photocopy of a diploma is not verification.
Filing, fees, the e-Visa.
The application fee is paid upfront for the principal and for every dependant, and it is not returned whatever the outcome. Issuance is paid only after approval, and the e-Visa is downloaded and scanned at the counter on arrival.
Renewal, job changes, year seven.
Extensions are filed within three months before the stay expires, and a change of employer on an employment condition needs approval first. We keep the seven-year count for permanent residence in view from the first entry.
Other ways into and out of the territory are listed under Immigration & Visas.
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